The Apocrypha Of William O'shaunessy: Book Iii, Ix Poem by Peter Boyle

By morning
three women, an old man
with a cart, two children.

By evening
two women, two men,
a young boy with a dog.

This summer,
two years passed.


~0~


Flies zigzag on the air;
a stone lies
where it has always lain;
smoke stirs
in a green space between silences.

Days end.


~0~


Today, looking down on the plain
where three roads meet,
a white dove settled
on my shoulder.

There is only
one journey.


~0~


Rain falls on dark roads.
Behind rough white walls
tears are endless.
In salt brine
olives best preserve
their sharp pure hunger.


~0~


Just above the level of the trees
two lightning bugs flicker their passage.
In the garden a single candle
shows me the path to the sky.


~0~


In the outer spaces of the world
the pure light awaits.


(Irene Philologos, A poetic journal of ten years in Boeotia)